Not as good as PSU, but Lehigh impressive

Ok, before I get to some Lehigh comments, I want to say something about Penn State.

About three weeks ago, sports editor Bill Kline -- "Mr. Nittany Line" to all you blog readers -- coaxed me into doing a Point/Counterpoint with him on whether Penn State was BCS bowl worthy.

Since I am one of the few non-Penn State cheerleaders on the staff, even though the school got three years of my tuition payments from 1979-82, I grudgingly took him on.

At that point, our only samples from PSU was them beating up Syracuse, Temple, Coastal Carolina and Oregon State, all of whom looked like they were no better than FCS (I-AA) programs. Since then, of course, Oregon State actually showed up for a game and beat one of my favorites -- USC -- which took that Thursday night off, probably thinking they were there for a practice and Saturday was the real game.

I truy believe Penn State's non-conference schedule is weak, as weak as anybody's in the country, so my point was -- how do we know how good they are?

Well, I watched them on Saturday night against Wisconsin and now even I have to admit that they're probably one of the best two or three teams in the country and will now likely get that BCS bowl bid, perhaps even a slot in the national title game.

In a typically weak Big Ten, only Ohio State now has a chance to beat them and if they play at OSU as well as they played at Wisconsin, Penn State probably wins by 20, even in Columbus. As someone who watched Terelle Pryor win state football and basketball titles last year for Jeannette in person, I know how good he is. He's eventually going to be great. But he's not ready to beat Penn State.

So, before everybody starts throwing that Point/Counterpoint column in my face, I have more information to go by now and I will agree that this is a special team, maybe the best they've ever had.

Do I think Texas, Florida, Alabama, or even my USC Trojans could beat them -- well, maybe. But they're only going to have to play one of those teams come January and even I will admit that I never bet against Penn State in a bowl game when they have over a month to prepare for somebody.

Now on to Lehigh...

This is what Lehigh fans have been waiting for. It's what Andy Coen has been waiting for since he arrived.

Coen came back to Lehigh with tremendous offensive credentials, but for two seasons he was dealing primarily with players he didn't recruit. He had Sedale Threatt at quarterback, a tremendous athlete and leader who was as dangerous running the ball as he was throwing it, but not the accurate, strong-armed, downfield passer Coen wanted for his pro style of offense.

So, the team had its ups and downs through Coen's first two years, ending up 11-11.

This year started slow as well, with losses to a clearly superior Villanova team and heartbreaking last-play defeats to Princeton and Cornell

But on Saturday, Coen and Lehigh fans finally got the attack, the explosive offense they have wanted to see all along and the result was a potentially season-turning 45-24 rout of defending league champ Fordham.

"Three years," Coen said when I asked him how long he has waited to see an offensive display like the one the guys in brown delivered on Saturday.

Sophomore quarterback J.B. Clark threw the ball accurately and stretched the field to a variety of receivers. Mix in some creative play calls and solid running by Matt McGowan and you finally had an offense that looked like they could score every time they had the ball.

"This is the first time in three years that I could feel like we could really let it rip," Coen said. "And that's what we did. We made some mistakes and when we watch the tape I'm sure we'll see some other things that were there. But I was proud that J.B. made enough good plays. He still took two sacks today that he shouldn't have taken. He also did some good things with his feet, scoring a touchdown and getting out of trouble another time. That's enough to give pause to defensive coordinators. Fordham didn't blitz us the way other teams have, so he was able to get comfortable."

Coen said: "The receivers are catching the ball, although there were also some drops today. It's a process, it really is. But the bottom line for any good pro-style offense is that everything revolves around the quarterback. What I liked today is that we didn't execute on one of our late series and kicked some things around, but we went back out there the next time and executed and went on to ice the game."

I expect Lehigh to lose next week at Harvard. It's kind of a shame that Lehigh has to go back into the nonconference side of their schedule again against a really good team on the road. But then it's Holy Cross, Georgetown, Colgate and Bucknell and a chance to win a lot of league games before the big one on Nov. 22 at Lafayette.

I don't know if Lehigh has fully arrived. I suspect that there's more adversity and more obstacles to come. But on Saturday, at least offensively, Lehigh showed it can be the fun-to-watch, high-scoring machine the Mountain Hawks were in their glory days.

It was a beautiful day at Goodman. People had a good time, but no one had a better time than the players and coaches who finally got a chance to smile again.

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On the FRONT PAGE of today's ( Monday ) paper at the very top it said that the Phillies took a 2-1 lead in the National League DIVISION series against the Dodgers.News Flash !!!! it is the Championship series, the division series was against Milwaukee.

Posted By: Mike | Oct 13, 2008 3:09:37 PM

Its good to see the teams you cheer for play up to their ability. That includes the coaching staff too. The QB play is essential. As a Lehigh and Atlanta Falcon fan last week was good. I hope both teams can pull off upsets this week.